Discussion Questions about Tool Development

Hi, I want to develop a tool and publish it in the Unity Asset Store. Two questions have come up:

1. I would really like to use the UI Toolkit for the Editor UI but does it even make sense to use it?
Because if someone downloads the asset in the asset store they will have to install the UI Toolkit from the Package Manager even if they otherwise wouldn't use it, right?
Shouldn't I as developer try to minimize the overhead for the user and rather use IMGUI?

2. Is it possible to publish an asset in the asset store and later on publish an extension for it that builds upon it?
Is there a setting to prevent people from downloading the extension without having downloaded the base tool?

 

No. UI Toolkit is not a package, it is a core module in 2021.3 (and probably earlier but can't recall the exact release version).


I'd say whether to use it right now or not depends on the tool and how long you plan on supporting it. If you plan for the long term I would definitely start with UI Toolkit right now as it will eventually make IMGUI stuff look old 2 years from now.

Sure. For example you could make a (totally not contested) FPS Maker and later decide to publish "Awesome FPS" built with FPS Maker that includes the FPS Maker. Therefore the latter would be priced higher. Or alternatively, you'd compile the FPS Maker core stuff into a DLL and publish that along with Awesome FPS demo because it depends on it and intending to upsell the Maker because the Maker offers source code access. There are also plenty of extension assets that require <insert popular tool>, for example PlayMaker has lots of extension assets from other devs.

There are plenty of such examples in any direction / combination, you'll find inspiration just by browsing your targeted category of the asset store (eg Templates).